


A Twin of Light

by Alexander_Wesker



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (this last tag is about the character not the RL person), 2020 L'Manberg Election on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Courtesy of Vilbur, Dimension Travel, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Immortal Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insanity, Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Permadeath AU, Post-Election Arc, Protective Wilbur Soot, Real Wilbur ends up in the Dream SMP! Verse, Realistic Minecraft, Sorry for the tag wall, Technoblade Hears Voices (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade is like… ‘Uh’, Technoblade isn't Tommy and Wilbur's brother but it's like he is, Tommy is like ‘Oh... guess I’ve two older brothers now’, Vilbur, Villain Wilbur Soot, War, Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings, Wilbur took one look at Vilbur treating badly Tommy and said: 'Fuck you other me', but c!Wilbur and c!Tommy are, c!Wilbur is like ‘Oh... another me’, cc!Wilbur and cc!Tommy aren't brothers(as we know), cc!Wilbur is like ‘Oh fuck... I’m in danger’;, minor acts of terrorism, they are brothers your honor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29769780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexander_Wesker/pseuds/Alexander_Wesker
Summary: It was a cruel twist of fate really, well maybe not fate exactly but cruel nonetheless.Playing the villain is fun, but having to face that villain knowing that now it’s all real…? No that wasn’t.He was a streamer, not a soldier. What the hell was he supposed to do?!Or for an unforeseen, impossible twist of fate Wilbur ends up in the DSMP Universe, and has to find a way to get back to our universe while trying to survive his insane character… and protect c!Tommy from his insane older brother.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & c!Wilbur Soot
Comments: 130
Kudos: 438





	1. Impossible Possibility

**Author's Note:**

> This is a One-shot for now but if you guys like it I'll make it a multi chapter FF, also sorry for the 2014 Wattpad-like plot. But I had this idea and I had to write it.  
> Hope you like it ^-^

The first thing Wilbur realized as he was starting to wake up was that it was cold. _Too cold. Had he forgot to turn the heater on last night?_

He shivered, _he had, hadn’t he? And now he was freezing_ , with a half-stifled groan, he decided to actually get up and stop being lazy. Maybe actually turn on the heater this time while he was at it.

_ Hell, it hadn’t been  _ this cold  _ when he went to sleep… _

It was then as he  started to get up that he realized two things: First, the air wasn’t only cold, but also stale, musty, earthy with a heavy hint of smoke that reminded him of London but without the stench of petrol; and second that he wasn’t in his bed. In fact he wasn’t in a bed at all, the ground under him solid and rough, stony… 

_What the…_

Wilbur’s eyes shot open, as he tried to get on his feet as quickly as possible. The haziness of sleep washed away by the adrenaline shooting through his body as fear set into his system.

It was dark, but not dark enough that he couldn’t see, though what he could see was confuse, vague shapes in the midst of a dusty darkness. It seemed like he was in a…  _cave_? _No, it was too narrow… an underground canyon maybe_ , over his head only heavy darkness and lanterns hanging from wooden supports, the flimsy chains making them  calmly swing in the immobile air. The flames hidden behind glass weak and almost on the point of going out, their light way too feeble to actually illuminate something, besides the walls closer to them, illuminating the dark gray stone with a warm yellowy light.

Greasy streaks of black crawling up the walls, like smoke stains.

The first thought that came to his racing mind was that… it was almost… _familiar_ in a way, and yet not at the same time, like something that he should have recognized but was too different from how he rembembered it but not too much to result irrecognizable, the second was that he didn’t know how the hell he ended up here. 

The last thing he remembered was ending the stream, turning off his setup and then… he woke up here, in this… _place_ , wherever it was.

_Had he been…_ kidnapped _?_   
  
_No._ He wasn’t bound or anything like that, though, he was in an unfamiliar place maybe underground if the complete lack of light indicated something… so whoever had brought him here, if his theory was right, wouldn’t have needed to bound him as he didn’t know where to go.

_ Okay.  
_

_ Okay. _

He had to find a way to get out of here, wherever here was… _possibly not alert his captors_ , if there were even people that had brought him here. 

It seemed so… _improbable_ and yet he couldn’t come up with anything better. He certainly couldn't have sleep-walked from Brighton to an underground canyon who-knows-where.  


Suppressing another shiver from the cold, his yellow sweater not really doing much with the humid cold in the cave, Wilbur slowly, carefully got close to one of the lanterns, to see if he could somehow take it to light his path no matter how little, it was better than pitch black darkness.

Unluckily for him the lanterns were very well secured, not hooked to the chains put fixed to them, and too high for him to attempt taking one even if they had been just hooked to the last link of the chain.

Biting down on a swear to not let it out, Wilbur started pondering on what his next move could be, forcing himself to remain calm even as anxiety and fear got stronger and stronger making his thoughts start to feel like sand, like sand slipping through his fingers.

“How did you get here?” 

Wilbur froze as a gruff voice broke the silence, fear spiking, his heart loud in his chest so loud, too loud. 

“ _How did you get here?_ ” asked the voice coming from behind him, again, the tone lower, more threatening if that was even possible, since it already sounded pretty intimidating.  


Wilbur found that he couldn’t answer even if he wanted to, _he couldn’t move…!_ It took his panicked brain some rather precious moments to realize that he knew that voice.

“T-Techno?” He stammered, finding his voice at last, confused and worried and yet… _relieved_. That was Techno’s voice, his friend’s voice, though louder without the slight muffling from the mic.

Wilbur turned, almost too quickly, wanting to see the known face of his friend, to calm down a bit. _He wasn't alone anymore, he and Techno would find a way to escape, together. They-_

That stream of thoughts stopped abruptly as he realized that Techno… _wasn’t Techno at all._ Or well he was somehow(even if his mind wanted to refuse the evidence right in front of it), but not his friend Techno. 

  
Glowing red eyes stared at him from a face hidden behind a boar’s skull mask, hands covered by armor gauntlets, a sword between them… _a sword that was pointed at him_ ,  the shiny, sharp metal, covered with something almost sparkly on the cutting edges, glinting under the weak light of the lanterns.  
  
Wilbur took a step back, as… ‘Techno’ lowered his sword in confusion.

“ _Wilbur_?” the red-eyed man asked, confusion lacing his monotone voice.

Wilbur nodded weakly, feeling like he was about to pass out if his heart didn’t calm down, if his fear didn’t stop constricting his lungs as it was doing. 

“Techno? Is something wrong?” asked another voice, clear as the sky, if a bit subdued in respect of how Wilbur was used to hear it.

Wilbur bit down on the ‘ _Tommy?_ ’ that he was about to say, as the kid neared them a sword in one hand and a torch in the other. 

And it was when he  saw the tattered blue-white coat decorated with golden trims  and fringed epaulettes hastily thrown over the teens shoulders that all the pieces went in their places, _even as his mind tried to refuse to acknowledge it_. 

_ Even if it was absurd. _

_ Even if it was impossible. _

Because he knew that uniform, he had one. He had paid two-hundred pounds to have it done for him. The Revolution Uniform coat, but the one on Tommy’s, _was that even Tommy? He technically was but he wasn’t at the same time_ , shoulders was ruined and tattered and not worn with the same care… 

Tommy, bright confused blue eyes, looked at him, his face pale, a scar over his nose, and he looked, over all,  _tired_ . “Wilbur? Why are you up already? It’s late.”

And Wilbur didn’t know what to answer.  _Was he here in place of the him of this… reality? Universe? Realm? How was he to define it? Did it meant that…_ Wilbur’s eyes slightly widened, did  _it meant that his character, the insane, completely off-the-rails Wilbur of this reality was in his place? In his Universe?_

_No. No…_

“Wilbur!” Tommy exclaimed, letting the sword fall on the stone under their feet, the clanking sound resounded in the underground canyon… _Pogtopia, he was in Pogtopia…_

_Oh, God. He was… This was… Oh, God… This wasn't..._

“Wil, Wil… _Wilby_ , can you hear me?” asked Tommy, voice filled with worry and Wilbur started feeling guilty in hearing that, he didn’t want to worry Tommy, even if this wasn’t his friend, he was still Tommy. He also sounded strangely cautious.

Wilbur nodded slightly, and Tommy sighed in relief. 

  
  
“That’s good, Big Dubs.” Tommy whispered, a little smile on his face. “It’s alright, Wil. Everything is fine. We are here, no-one knows where Pogtopia is…  _we are safe._ ” 

_And wasn’t it sad that this Tommy seemed so used to calm down his version of Wilbur?_

  
  
Tommy got closer, his steps careful, hands empty, he had given his torch to Techno, and raised… Wilbur involutarily frowned at that, at the possible meaning behind that gesture, Tommy stopped, paling a bit at his frown.

The guilt in Wilbur’s chest grew, and he tried to smooth out his expression, though he didn’t like how fearful Tommy appeared to be of him.

_ It seemed so wrong. _

_ So utterly wrong. _

“What's happening here?!” A voice echoed in the underground base, angered and confused and way too loud. Shattering the silence like a rock would have shattered a glass pane. 

Tommy stilled, Techno frowned behind his mask.

And Wilbur was shocked in hearing his own voice sounding this…  _different_ .

Heavy steps resounded in the silence, and then…

_They_ were face to face.

His character, the Wilbur from this reality, looked just like him, like a twin but somehow different. His eyes were darker, angrier, his face pale, gaunter, like he hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks,  and then there was the snarl on his face, that made him look even more dangerous and unstable than he already looked. 

Tommy’s eyes moved frantically from him to… _the other him_ , the teen took a silent step back, hiding in the shadows besides them, the other Wilbur didn’t even notice, his eyes focused only on him.

And Wilbur felt like he was under the watching gaze of a dangerous animal, that hadn’t yet snapped and bit, but that was thinking of doing so. He shivered and this time it wasn’t because of the ever present cold.

Other Wilbur took a step towards him, Wilbur took one back, tripping on a small rock protruding from the stone, he yelped as he started falling, Other Wilbur stopped his fall grabbing him by the sweater, dirtying the soft yellow wool, with the dirt and coal residue that covered his fingers and fingerless gloves. 

Other Wilbur pulled him closer till they were face to face. So close that even in the relative darkness, Wilbur could see himself reflected in the other’s eyes. 

“ _Who the fuck are you?_ ” Other Wilbur growled, tightening the fist in his sweater. “And why the fuck do you look like me?” 

  
  
For a moment Wilbur couldn’t answer, all of his thoughts, his very mind had halted to a stop. Fear and confusion and something screaming that this had to be an absurd _nightmare_ that this wasn’t possible in any way or form, filling his every, rushing thought. 

Other Wilbur shook him roughly. Wilbur brought a hand to his other self wrist, Other Wilbur was too cold and too hot at the same time as if he was running a high fever. Despite his fear, a tiny drop of worry for the other took roots in his scared heart. 

And before the other could think of shaking him again, or bring his other hand to his neck as he seemed so ardently to be wanting to do. With voice shaking with fear, Wilbur answered:

“I-I am… _I’m you._ ” 


	2. ...Prove it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Other Wilbur has been clear, or Wilbur tells him something that only him himself could know or the next thing that would happen would be the blade of Techno’s sword going through his neck.
> 
> Wilbur doesn’t have the slightest idea of what he has to say, until… 
> 
> Or luckily for Wilbur, no matter what Universe he is from, there are things that will always have the same name to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all guys thank you for the response and feedback you gave me for this story.  
> This second chapter is way longer because I made you wait a long time before it was out so I though that it would have been a good pay-off for the time I made you wait.  
> Hope you like it.

Other Wilbur stared at him silently, seconds stretched in what appeared to be minutes, before a slow, sarcastic smile curved his lips as he tightened the grip on Wilbur’s sweater, gesturing at Technoblade with the other hand, eyes –cold, ever filled with anger, and now with something that appeared almost like twisted amusement– never leaving Wilbur’s own.

  
The boar-masked man gave his sword to Other Wilbur without even questioning why the man had asked for it. 

Wilbur tensed.

“Oh? You are?” Other Wilbur asked, tone mocking, it was clear that he didn’t believe his words. He leaned closer, Wilbur suppressed the instinct to try to pull back. “Prove it. Tell me something only I could know.” the man said, then his smile widened “or I’ll rip your fucking throat open with this sword. Can’t let you go and tell anyone our position, you know?”

Wilbur felt his blood freeze in his veins at the other’s words, as he felt panic start to grow in his chest constricting it, his gaze moving from Other Wilbur’s to the sharp sword in his hand, the blade glinting under the feeble lantern light, and the flickering light of the torch in Techno’s hands.

_ What…? _

_ What could he even say? _

He may have written this character, but all he knew was what happened in the events of the role play… and all of the events there were public knowledge in the SMP. 

_ What the hell could he…? _

“I...I don’t even know where we are…” Wilbur stammered out, voice almost too quiet and trembling, _because yeah he knew what, where Pogtopia was but that was on a Minecraft Map not.._

But that was apparently the wrong thing to say, because as soon as the sound of his voice stopped echoing in the semi-empty ravine, Other Wilbur’s expression turned from a mocking, bloodthirsty smile to an angered snarl, as the man pushed against him, forcing Wilbur backwards till his back hit one of the rough, humid stone walls, but the pain from the impact quickly passed in the background when he felt the sharp point of the sword pressed against his abdomen, not hard enough to cut through the fabric or his skin, but enough for him to know that it was there.

His breath caught in his throat.

“Do you think I’m stupid?”growled his character, that now wasn’t a character anymore, but a person alive and real and insane, that wanted him dead on basically no basis other his own paranoia.

  
  
Wilbur shook his head, not even knowing if the question had been hypothetical or not. Not wanting to risk it, not when he had a sword trained on him, pressing down, sharp and lethal.

“And still you think that you can play me for a _fool_? Getting here and then telling me that you don’t even know where you are?!”

For a moment, Wilbur thought that… _this was it._ That he would die here, in a world that to him hadn’t even been real till a few _hours? Minutes?_ Ago. That Other Wilbur, his character, the villain he had so much fun playing as and creating but that now was terrifying him, would ran him through with that sword.

Then..

“Wilbur! Stop! You said you’d give that… other you… guy, a chance to explain!”

Tommy’s voice echoed around them, the teen had somehow neared them, and had a hand wrapped around Other Wilbur’s wrist, the one that had to move to push the sword.

“That was before he tried to mock me, Tommy.” this time Other Wilbur’s gaze moved from Wilbur’s to the side where Tommy was.

“I… I wasn’t, I swear” Wilbur said, croaked really, his voice breaking around the knot in his throat caused by the panic. Other Wilbur’s gaze snapped back on him growing darker and angrier.

  
“Give him a chance!” Tommy said “Please. Wil, you always said to give people a chance to explain themselves, remember?”  
  
The pressure from the sword lessened slightly, though Wilbur didn’t let himself be relieved by that, the sword was still there, his other-self still wanting him dead. And even if Wilbur would be forever grateful for Tommy’s intervention even with this precious moments added to the time he still had to live. His brain couldn’t conjure up any idea about what only Wilbur, this Wilbur could know, what he could say… that hoping that he still had that chance.

That Other Wilbur hadn’t made his mind up already.

“Why are you tying to save him, Tommy?” Other Wilbur asked, tone deceptively calm, yet with too much of an edge to seem actually calm.

“W-What? I’m… I’m not.” Tommy answered, almost rushing his words under the man’s gaze.

Once again it seemed so wrong to see Tommy so afraid of him, even if the him that was here had probably got that fear for a reason. “It’s just that… we are fair, Wilbur… if we stop, what’s different between us and Schl-”

“Don’t say _that name_!” Other Wilbur shouted, his voice resounding in the ravine, echoing like the lament of a deranged phantom, Tommy flinched, letting the man’s wrist go, Wilbur stilled, before trying to back against the wall as far as he could, biting down a hiss of pain when felt his back sting, he must have got scratched by the stone when Other Wilbur basically slammed him against the wall.

“Fine!” Said the man after the echo of his own voice had died down, letting go of Wilbur’s sweater to ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll give this lying fucker a chance. But if he fails, or if he takes too long I’ll kill him.”

Tommy nodded fearfully, before his blue eyes moved to meet Wilbur’s for a fraction of a moment, before the boy backed away, going near Technoblade that was watching everything unfold, curious.

Other Wilbur looked at him again. “Heard that?” Wilbur nodded, hesitant. “Good. Let’s see what you come up with…” a little half-smirk bent the man’s lips, as if he was certain Wilbur would lie, and that he’d catch him on that lie.

Meanwhile Wilbur was trying to think of anything, anything!, that could save his life. But every single information that came up to his mind were things that only he himself would know not his character.

Everything he could recall about his character were either something that would be of public knowledge in the place he found himself in, or the stupid jokes he made. Like the one about the salmon, but it wasn’t going to help him.

_ He couldn’t think of anything. _

_ He couldn’t… _

“Time’s running out.” Other Wilbur sing-songed, and it was so fucking terrifying to hear his own voice sound like that, to see his own face wearing that expression, to see his own eyes filled with so much madness that just looking at them Wilbur felt like he was drowning in a pool of tar.

_ What could he say to save his life? _

_ He didn’t want to die, not here.  
  
Not now. _

_ Not like this. _

_ He didn’t want… He didn’t… he… _

An idea flashed through his panic filled brain, moving through his confused thoughts.

There was one thing that Wilbur cared about above all things.

One single thing.

“Time’s up, liar.” Other Wilbur hissed, pulling back the sword a little just so that he could use the momentum of the swing to let the blade cut through everything.

“ _Simone!_ ” Wilbur said, yelled really, voice cracking and way too high, as he pressed his eyes shut not wanting to watch his other-self as he drove a blade into his body.

After a few  moments of nothing happening, he opened them. Other Wilbur was watching him, arm still in that position, like he had frozen.

“What did you just say?” the man asked.

Wilbur took a quick but deep breath, pushing down his fear, if the shock on Other Wilbur’s face meant something than that  he must have said something right.

“I… I said _Simone_ , it’s the name of your… my guitar.” 

Other Wilbur remained silent, for a moment, then another one, and then another more. And Wilbur didn’t know if it was a good thing or not.  
  
If he had saved himself or just condemned himself.

_ He didn’t know… he didn’t- _

Other Wilbur’s arm fell to his side, the sword pointed towards the ground, as the man’s eyes studied him. Like he was searching for something in him.

For what felt like hours, Wilbur waited, with breath  baited. Ignoring the sting of his back even though it was becoming more and more difficult to, as he felt warm, sticky blood drip down, plastering his sweater to the scratches and making them sting even more.

“How…?”Asked his other-self, voice quieter than Wilbur had heard it since the moment he woke up in Pogtopia. “How do you… know that? How is… This is impossible.” he added a few instants later, still staring at him like he couldn’t comprehend his existence, how he was in front of his eyes.

Wilbur himself didn’t know. To him too this was impossible, but now with fear still rushing in his veins and panic pushed down, to keep as calm he could, with the pain from his back… Wilbur was more than convinced that this wasn’t a dream, or well more correctly a nightmare. 

  
_Though his mind wanted to keep believing that none of this was real._

Because it was better than the option that he really was stuck here. In a Universe he knew was filled with sorrow and pain, with more to come on their way, in a Universe where to survive one had to fight and kill.

_ Wilbur wasn’t a soldier. _

He was just a streamer, a musician. Sometimes a writer, and an actor… but this… he couldn’t wing this,  he didn’t know a first thing about fighting, or using a sword, or even how to survive in the wilderness.  _  
  
What the fuck was he gonna do here?! _

The only thing that his mind thought, the only answer it had was… _die._

_He would die here, wouldn’t he_ ?  
  
Die just like his own character, that was still alive in the moment he ended up in. Die surrounded by people that wore his friends’ faces but weren’t them.

Other Wilbur chuckled, too high-pitched and wrong, relieved for something that Wilbur couldn’t even begin to  fathom.

“When I asked for help, I wasn’t expecting _this_.” Other Wilbur chuckled again, sword now harmlessly hanging from his fingers, like he was about to let it fall to the ground and yet didn’t want to. “But of course, what could have I expected? Who’d help me better than myself?” the man pondered out loud, his voice echoing in the ravine.

Wilbur’s mind locking on what the other had just said, ‘ _ help’? How could he help? He wasn’t like… Other Wilbur. He’d never _ …

When his other-self turned to him, there was no trace of aggression in his posture, nor on his face. A smile bending his lips, a smile that could have even appeared comforting if it wasn’t for the undefinable emotion shining in his eyes, that made Wilbur feel uneasy.

_ Like some prey under their predator’s gaze.  _

_ Like a little cub in front of a much more dangerous adult lion. _

Only that he wasn’t even a ‘cub’, he couldn’t defend himself if Other Wilbur decided to attack not even if he tried.

Other Wilbur chuckled once again, voice softer, almost embarrassed as he ran his free hand through his messy hair once again. He looked deceptively harmless, acting like that. “Sorry for… all of that.” He said, gesturing to the wall, against which Wilbur was still leaning, almost  afraid to move away from it, and to realize that his blood covered the stone, he didn’t know how he’d react to that.  
The sole thought making him feel slightly nauseous. “But one can never be too sure. Never know what tricks your enemies could try to pull against you. I’m sure you understand, right?”

For a fraction of an instant, the man’s eyes got cold again, but then Wilbur nodded, and that coldness melted away.

Other Wilbur took a few steps back, leaving Wilbur space to  breathe, without the smell of coal, leather and blood that surrounded his other-self.

“Thanks for the sword, Techno.” Other Wilbur said, giving the sword back to the boar-masked man that didn’t answer other than a little gruff sound of acknowledgment, before taking it back and immediately sheathing it back in its decorated leather sheath that hang from Technoblade’s belt.

“Uh, I think other you is kind of shell-shocked, Wilbur.” Technoblade said, voice monotone as his usual, glowing eyes staring at Wilbur who had yet to move from the position where his other-self had left him. His back still pressed against the stone wall as if he was trying to get away from a sword that wasn’t there anymore.

Other Wilbur whipped around, his trench-coat whirling like a cloak around him. As if he couldn’t believe Techno’s words until he saw it himself.

For his part, Wilbur didn’t even notice. As the reality of the fact that he had been this close to getting murdered took roots in his brain, the fact that if he had been just a second slower… now he’d be dead. Probably like chocking on his own blood, while Other Wilbur twisted the blade around.

_ He’d been so close to… Oh, God. _

_ He actually almost… _

Someone put their hand on his shoulder and Wilbur jumped out of his skin, whirling around even as a pained sound left his mouth, the slight sting in his back turning to actual burning pain, the movement must had to open the scratches back up. 

An amused chuckle, and Wilbur realized that it had been his other-self that had touched his shoulder, ripping him out from his mind.

“Gods, you are jumpy.” the man said, amusement filling his voice, not exactly cruel, but not even not at Wilbur’s expenses. “Kinda reminds me of the old times… the War for L’Manberg.” as he said those words his voice quieted down, a somber expression on his face, before it became cold almost calculating. Then a slow smile grew on his face, like he had put the pieces of the puzzle back together. 

Then his eyes moved from Wilbur to the wall he had been leaning against, and frowned. Wilbur followed his gaze, ans sure enough there was blood on the gray stone, mixing up with the greasy black from the smoke. And Wilbur almost felt nauseous in seeing that. “Well, looks like we have to take care of that, uh? Wouldn’t want you to get an infection, those are a bitch to treat.” the man said.

In the meantime Technoblade started walking around the ravine, reviving the lanterns with new fire from the torch that had been Tommy’s before the teen gave it to him, said teen instead had  hurried to the central place of the ravine.

And wasn’t it strange to see it…  _real?_ Bathed in a low orange light, a place that to Wilbur had always been just block-y and kinda sad to look at, furnaces and chests put together hidden in the overhanging of a disleved stone step.

The center of Pogtopia was…  _different_ , yeah he expected that since now it wasn’t in a block-game but he didn’t expect this either.

It was still narrow, but with more space to use, some natural alcoves had been turned into storage, actual wooden chests rounded and a bit rough looking, likely actually made from the people that were using them, hidden away from the eye though not enough to be impossible to spot, there was a fire pit in the absolute center and smelting crucibles dug directly in the stone, some wooden furniture around the fire pit, and a table near one of the closer alcoves, so that when the fire in the pit was lit it would have given it the perfect amount of light to work on things, on said table there was a lot of stuff, some that Wilbur could almost recognize similar as they were to their in-game sprites, but other’s that he couldn’t even begin to fathom what the hell they were.

It still felt oppressive and kind of claustrophobic, especially with all that clutter, but at the same time… it didn’t feel as cold as it appeared to be in the game rendition.

Other Wilbur walked in the relative darkness with the ease of someone who knew where everything was even without seeing it, Wilbur basically stumbled behind him trying to not trip on something, the cold of the ravine presenting itself once again as Wilbur’s shock started receeding.

“Sit on that chair, back to me” Other Wilbur said, practically ordered him with the tone of someone who was used to be listened to, pointing with a hand to what Wilbur was sure it was a chair if it wasn’t that it was in the darkest point of the center of the base.  
With hesitation, not really wanting to turn his back on the man that tried to kill him not even a few minutes ago, Wilbur did as told, not really wanting to risk an infection… not in the place he was in.  
He was pretty sure that in a world such as this with potions and the like, they sure as hell didn’t have the medicine to make that pass quickly, and not be possibly deadly.

Still he kept looking over his shoulder, even though he wasn’t sure of what he could do if Other Wilbur tried to kill him again.

“Tommy, lit the fire. I need light.”  
  
“I’m on it, Wil!” Tommy answered, there was something army-like in the way he had answered, like a soldier saying ‘yessir’ to his officer-in-command. 

Wilbur felt his heart twinge in remembering that that was exactly it, that Tommy’s character was basically a child-soldier, a boy that never had the possibility to be a kid, a boy that had been basically forced into war when he was just nine years old.

Wilbur felt like he had never actually realized the implications of that, when it was just a game, a roleplay, than he was doing now, watching a literal kid hurry around, and lit up a fire, with precise movements, back straight as a soldier’s (nothing like Tommy’s slouched posture), so upright that even if the coat was just on his shoulders it didn’t fell as he moved around.

“You better take off that jumper, before Wil realises you haven’t yet, big man” Tommy whispered to him as he fed another log into the now crackling fire. “’Cause, he’ll yell at you if you don’t… I mean I’m not sure if he’d yell to himself, but you know better be safe than sorry. You don’t want an angry Wil taking care of your wounds…” he continued, almost rambling on his eyes fixed on Other Wilbur’s back. Then he paled as if he thought that he had done a bad thing, or something that could put him in trouble. “Uhm, forget what I just said… you know it, of course, you know it… he’s you… _you’re him_.” the kid laughed nervously, the sound of his voice almost cracking, eyes staring at Other Wilbur.

Wilbur almost said ‘ _I’m not_ ’ after seeing the actual, honest to god fear in Tommy’s eyes after he realized  _who_ he was talking to, but stopped himself before doing so, instead trusting Tommy’s advice, and started taking off his sweater, well more than taking it off, it was like peeling it off, since the fabric had stuck on the wound(s?) on his back. He stifled a hiss of pain and pulled it off.

The scratch(es?) burned when they were hit, by the stale, musty air inside the ravine, which still felt cold despite the fire burning in the fire pit. And Wilbur threw a glance over his shoulder just to see his other-self walk towards him, with some bandages and a basin filled with water.

“Tommy take the ointment paste from storage.” Other Wilbur said as he put the basin on a near stone slap tall enough to let him reach it comfortably, Tommy just nodded and left them. Then his eyes finally fell on him, and Wilbur involuntarily tensed under his gaze, the other hummed something under his breath.

“Could be worse.” Other Wilbur said, voice light, _like he had never threatened him, like they had been on friendly terms since the beginning, Wilbur didn’t trust it, and him, one bit_. “Literally, the first time we came here I fell so badly I had to get my arm stitched, worst experience ever. Wouldn’t recommend.” he added, his tone half-reminded Wilbur of his own when he joked with his friends yet… _different_ but in a way that he couldn’t put his finger on, Wilbur remained silent, biting his lip to not show any reaction when the man started cleaning the scratches.

Silence fell between them for a while, Wilbur staring at the other from over his shoulder, Other Wilbur actually doing a half-decent job in cleaning the blood and the yellow fibers that had got caught in it, off the scratches, though he wasn’t all that careful to not cause unnecessary pain. 

_That was probably his fault_ , Wilbur pondered, _he had made his character kind of careless of his own health, uncaring if he hurt himself or not, until he still got what he wanted._ So it made sense that since Other Wilbur saw him as another him, which they technically were, he’d think that the same applied to him too.

“You know we are not an army anymore, do you?” asked the other abruptly, before thanking Tommy for the ointment.

“Uh?” 

Other Wilbur smiled, in a way that kind of creeped Wilbur out, especially with how close he was to him and the fact that his fingers, which were at least clean now thank God, were basically tracing over his scratches. He looked like he was elated and, at the same time, like he wanted to dig into his flesh and scratch and claw till he hurt.

Wilbur kept staring, and Other Wilbur smirked, like he knew why Wilbur was staring at him even if he was fucking terrified of him.

Then he finished up with applying the ointment and started bandaging his back.

“We’ll have to change the dressing at least once, but this should pass pretty quickly.” Other Wilbur said, washing up his hands in the reddish water in the basin. 

Wilbur hoped that he wouldn’t die of infection anyway after seeing his other-self do that, and remembering that those hands had touched his wounds.  
_  
He didn’t really want to die of that._

_ Nor of anything else that could happen to him in this place really. _

_ He just wanted to go back to his Reality, maybe wake up if this really was a strangely realistic dream. _

_  
Though after all that had happened he really doubted it. _

Technoblade, having finished to lit back up all the lanterns joined them into the center of the base, sitting on a big stone near the fire pit, red cloak falling behind him like a blood waterfall.

Other Wilbur and the newly arrived Techno exchanged a look, and then Other Wilbur went away somewhere bringing the basin with him and after having thrown the piece of cloth with which he had cleaned the wounds into the fire, making it crackle and splutter sparks around the wet cloth.

None of the three sitting around the fire said anything, Tommy sitting on the ground with crossed legs, watching over his head like he was imagining the sky, Technoblade watching Wilbur who pretended he didn’t notice the blood red eyes of the man staring at him as he kept staring into the flames, wondering  _what the hell was he supposed to do now. And how he could go back if this was really real, his mind still fighting him every time he thought it was._   
  
_But really with all that had happened, with the stinging pain from his now taken care of scratches, and the cold from the air. With all of this how could this be a dream?  
  
It felt way too real._

Just as real as reality felt before he woke up in the middle of this ravine that shouldn’t be real, surrounded by people who wore his friends’ faces but weren’t them, with someone who wore his own face and yet was completely different from him.

With a low sigh, Wilbur decided that  _since he couldn’t tell the difference, since he couldn’t tell if this was real or not, he’d act as he would if it were real, better be safe than sorry after all._

_ If this was just a strangely realistic dream, he’d just laugh it off his extreme caution in the morning. _

_ But if this was real at least he was actually trying to survive, even though he was stuck with a man who had more mood swings than a storm had winds changing direction. _

He shivered as the cold reminded him of it’s existence once again. And really he didn’t have anything on him besides his, now blood-stained, yellow sweater so he made to put it on, but was stopped by the voice of a newly returned Other Wilbur, that had something for him apparently.

Wilbur looked up in suspicion, he wont forget so soon the fact that this man tried to kill him, no matter how friendly he was now. Especially why he was being so friendly right now, doing a complete one-eighty way too quickly to be normal, even though the other members of Pogtopia were acting like it was perfectly normal.

“Here. No need to put that thing on stained as it is.” Other Wilbur said, that slightly unsettling smile still on his face.

The first thing was a white jumper that Wilbur was more than happy to put on, even though it appeared to have done nothing for the cold… 

_ How was this possible? He was so close to the fire. How could he still feel so cold? _

It was the second thing he gave him that made him pause. At first he thought that it was one of Other Wilbur’s trench-coats, which would have made sense, though Wilbur would have hated to match so perfectly with such a man that could one moment trying to take your life and the one after being like your best-friend.  
  
_It was like he was trying to convince Wilbur that things would go well only if he listened to him which… yeah, no. He wouldn’t follow a madman, only make him believe he would._  
  
He really hoped to be able to survive this. 

But the coat wasn’t a trench-coat, it was a familiar blue-white coat, trimmed with red and gold, with fringed golden epaulettes, and golden buttons even if they were tarnished, the blue coat slightly stained with old blood stains, the biggest of which was on the back of the uniform coat, a barely visible stitch closed a tear, that Wilbur knew had been caused by an arrow, as he wrote that event in the script of the role-play.

Tommy was looking at them confused, possibly not understanding just as much as Wilbur wasn’t understanding the why behind that gesture. Techno looked vaguely surprised and interested.

“I wanted to burn that thing… but well, I didn’t” Other Wilbur said even if that explained nothing. “And it suits you better than it does me.” he added. That unsettling smile back on his face, and Wilbur shivered even as he accepted the ‘gift’. “We’ll take L’Manberg back, together, what do you say, _General_?”

And Wilbur shuddered as he, now, understood why Other Wilbur looked at him with that elation-envy-hatred. 

_ He had to get out of here. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need help on something guys, what do you think Wilbur and Other Wilbur should call each other when they are talking to one another? 'Cause I'm unsure on what to use.
> 
> Any advice is accepted.  
> Thank you ^-^


	3. A General who’s never lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Other Wilbur kept calling him General, Wilbur realized that he had somehow ended up convincing his other-self that he and him were the same, just from two different moments in time.
> 
> Or Tommy now looks at him with such a hope in his eyes, and Wilbur doesn’t have the heart to crush his hopes.

As shocked as he was by the sudden  realization, it took Wilbur a few moments to realize that his other-self was still staring at him, expectantly, a slight smile fixed to his face.

Only then Wilbur realized that he had yet to answer the question the other had asked him and, also, realized that he didn’t have the slightest idea on how to answer without implying that he was exactly who Other Wilbur thought he was.

But at the same time he couldn’t exactly try to leave right now, as he was certain that that would have ended in his death, whether by his other-self’s hand or Techno’s or by, practically, everyone else if he accidentally ended up in L’Manberg… _or was it Manberg now?_

_ When exactly in the arc had he ended up into? _

It was when he realized that Other Wilbur’s stare was turning into a freezing glare that Wilbur rushed out a question, feeling like he was putting the nails on his own coffin as the words left his mouth, way too calm and collected, if confused, for how he was feeling. “Taking back L’Manberg?”

Other Wilbur leaned back, away from him, his eyes leaving him, finally, even though Wilbur didn’t feel at all safer, and instead now staring into the flames, the smile falling off his face. “Right. You don’t know.” Other Wilbur stated, before pausing for a few seconds that almost felt like minutes with the heavy tension in the air. “After we won our freedom,  we called for an election… We wanted to let the people choose.” another pause, the voice of his other-self had been calmer than Wilbur had ever heard it since he arrived, his gaze distant, yet the pain and loss were clear, shining through the glaze of madness that occluded them. Then fury appeared, contorting his expression in something more suitable for the snout of a beast than the face of a human being. “We lost.  _We lost._ And that  _ram-horned bastard_ won instead of us, and even had the nerve to exile us! From the nation we founded! The nation for which he shed blood and tears…  _He ripped it away from_ me.”  his voice was a low growl by the time he finished, a tone, once more, more suited to a beast than a man.

And while Wilbur knew all of this, he had wrote it, even though the result of the election had been a surprise to him too, it also felt so… different, to hear it. To hear such a genuine pain under all that anger, to actually see what losing that country that to Wilbur had been just a fictional place had done to his other-self.

Other Wilbur didn’t get irritated at his lack of a reaction, probably interpreting it as shock, which it was, though not for the reason the other was thinking. Another smile, this more manic than the others he had seen, bent his lips. “But we can take it back. They can stop me… but,  _but_! They can’t stop us!  If we fight  _together_ , me and you and Tommy…” a little pause as his tone grew more and more frantic, manic, almost as if he was working himself up into a panic but without the panic. “And Technoblade! Together  _we are unstoppable_! We’ll take L’Manberg back, we’ll take it back, back, back in the hands where it should be!” a slight chuckle sudden left the other’s lips, melting together the last words, and from the slight shock on his face that had been completely out of his control.

Wilbur stopped himself from shivering, and from trying and get away from his other-self that, now, was sitting near him, but he even he had tried he couldn’t have distanced himself all that much, since Tommy was by his other side, staring at him with eyes so filled with hope that if Wilbur hadn’t been terrified in being so close to who was, without any understatement, was a madman,  he would have melted right away and hugged him as he so clearly wanted.

“We, me and you, we’ll cut the ram’s head and hang it from the highest yardarm, over the White House.”  
  
And this time Wilbur couldn’t stop his shiver, a slight hint of nausea making his stomach convulse as his hyper-imaginative brain conjured up an image of what Other Wilbur had just described. And the sole idea of… _harming_ , killing one of his friends( _even though the Schlatt in this Universe wasn’t the Schlatt he knew, just like it was for everyone else._ ), making him feel such a disgust that Wilbur was glad his stomach was empty, though the bitter bile rising in his throat wasn’t all that better. 

He pushed down the feeling of revulsion and disgust, chasing away the image of Schlatt’s head( _in his mind it was his friend's, not ram-horned Schlatt from the roleplay, and that made it even worse_ ) pinned on the tip of a yardarm, blood dripping down the metal.

Other Wilbur’s arm wrapping around his shoulders, brought him back to reality – _though was this reality? Or just a strange, sick, hyper-realistic fantasy from his mind?_ – as the other chuckled again. Leaning towards him, till all Wilbur could  breathe was the metallic smell of copper, and coal  and smoke with the faintest trace of ink, coming from the other.  
  
“I know, I can hardly wait myself.”

Wilbur froze,  _had… had his character confused his shiver of disgust with… eagerness?_

Other Wilbur chuckled again, the sound of his voice too close to his ear for his liking, his other-self was just too close for comfort in general, but hearing that half-deranged, too high-pitched sound (his own voice sounding so different) so close, had him suppressing another shiver, fear ever-growing in his chest, nesting in between his lungs and squeezing. 

“Oh, no need to look so shocked, General.” Other Wilbur said, voice dripping with amusement, almost enjoyment, as he leaned even closer, Wilbur tensing like a deer dazzled from the lights of a car, terrified yet unable to move, to whisper something into his ear: “You don’t have to put up that mask. I know you liked the image you just saw in your head. After all you and me… _we are the same._ ” and Wilbur wanted to deny, to get away, but _he couldn’t move, he couldn’t move_ just like before, just like when Other Wilbur had pointed the sword at him. He couldn’t move and he just wanted to close his eyes shut and shrink in on himself until he woke up in the _right place_.

He felt his skin prickling, to the point of making him uncomfortable in his own skin, and also making him hyper aware of the others' stare: Tommy's confused glance and Technoblade so shocked that the expression was evident even through the mask.

Other Wilbur chuckled again, Wilbur almost twitched, almost shivered at the sound, and then he added: “I remember all the sick, little thoughts running through our head during the War, all that we imagined doing to Dream, if the green weirdo ever ended up in our mercy.”  
  
Wilbur almost didn’t dare to breathe, nor to try and turn his head instead watching just with the corner of his eye, seeing the slow, almost lazy, smile on the other’s lips.

_What the hell was up with all this closeness? What the hell did his other-self want? Why was he being so… creepy?_ Unsettling, because Wilbur couldn’t gauge his intentions, just that he was too close, _too close…!_   
  
And then Other Wilbur leaned back, his arm still around his shoulder, but the distance between them making it feel more friendly, than…  _whatever the hell that was before_.

Nobody commented, Wilbur would have wondered if it was because it was normal, if his other-self had done this before with someone else, or if they too were too confused to comment on what had just happened. Or if they had refrained from commenting to not cause another of Other Wilbur’s mood swings.

“We’ll get our L’Manberg back.” His other-self said, and not wanting to deal with more of his unpredictability, Wilbur took a page from Tommy’s book and nodded too, as if he agreed, when in reality he didn’t, not with his other-self methods… though at least, Other Wilbur hadn’t decided to blow up the country… _yet_.  
  
Though with how unstable he already was… _how much time would pass before he decided that his country couldn’t be saved? That it was ruined beyond saving?_

“Well, since we are already all awake…” started Technoblade, voice monotone though with a hint of awkwardness, attracting the attention on him, especially since he hadn’t spoken at all since Wilbur had ‘proven’ himself to his other-self. “We could get started with the day?” he completed, his question sounding more like an affirmation than an actual question.  
  
Other Wilbur nodded. “We may as well.” he said, finally moving his arm away from Wilbur, which the man was incredibly grateful for ( _until he blocked the thought, he didn’t have to be grateful because of this, his other-self was the one in the wrong in the first place_ ), and standing up, Techno and Tommy followed suit, and then Wilbur too, even though he wasn’t sure on what his other-self could tell him to do. 

It wasn’t like Wilbur knew how to hunt, or mine, or fight or… anything that could be remotely useful for this situation. Keeping his raising anxiety from showing, he realized that he was… pretty much screwed no matter what.

“Since the General is new here, he’ll stay with me, Techno… well, go and continue with what you’ve been doing.” The boar-masked man nodded and turned, his cape fluttering in the stale air at the movement, and then he disappeared in one of the tunnels, Wilbur just now had realized the existence of. ( _So he could also cut spacial awareness from the rather short list of the things he could be useful with…_ ). “Tommy, you know what to do.” Other Wilbur added. “Be back in two hours, and if you come back with empty hands, _again_ , _so help me gods…_ ” his voice trailed off but Tommy winched all the same. 

“I...I wont.” The kid almost stammered catching himself before it was too evident, his eyes downcast, even though for a moment he looked at Wilbur, before letting his gaze fall on the rough stone under them.

“You better.” 

Tommy nodded once again and then he too was off into one of the tunnels. Leaving Wilbur alone with his clearly insane other-self, without any clue on why he had to stay with him.

Not that he was thinking about any supposed duty right now, his mind filled with a loop of what had just happened. On the way his other self had so carelessly, and naturally, threatened Tommy as if that was common place between them, the way Tommy had cowered at the exact moment his other-self’s voice had dropped slightly.

Wilbur felt his heart twinge, he should have stepped in… though at the same time he didn’t want to accidentally make it worse for the poor kid.

“You shouldn’t be so harsh with him.” he commented before he could really stop himself, the words leaving his mouth before he could even catch up with the thought they came from.  
  
Other Wilbur looked at him, he didn’t seem angry, nor irritated at his words, then he chuckled briefly. “I’m not being ‘harsh’ with him. My little brother just needs a bit of toughening up if he wants to come out of this rebellion as unharmed as possible.” 

Wilbur didn’t even blink at hearing his other-self call Tommy ‘little brother’, after all it wasn’t all that outlandish to think that the close friendship he and Tommy had would somehow transfer into this Universe too, though it was strange that they too had a closer to brotherly relationship. 

“That’s… not toughening him up, though. He was terrified, surely you must realize it!”  
If he was being perfectly honest with himself, Wilbur didn’t knew from where all of this courage was coming from, he was still terrified of his other-self, but at the same time, he… couldn’t just stay put and look as Other Wilbur made Tommy cower in fear.

Other Wilbur smiled as if unconcerned by his insinuations. “He wasn’t ‘terrified’, he was just getting ‘shaky voiced’ it’s not that bad.” 

For a moment as he watched his other-self shrug off such a clear sign that the boy was scared of him as ‘not that bad’, Wilbur thought that he’d just let his rapidly raising anger make him act on the thoughts that were forming in his head, honestly the other may terrorize him but he was also already getting so fed up with his attitude and hearing him disregard something as important as being a decent human being to the kid who looked up to him like he was his older brother, was making him almost see red.

But then his other-self continued: “And it’s not as if I’ve started now, and you know what I’m talking about, General. We have always wanted the best for Tommy, even if he doesn’t realize it yet.”

And, really, that was news for him. He had written the story and he wasn’t aware of that, _was this a good sign that things weren’t exactly as he wrote them… or had he to be worried of things turning out even worse_?

“I don’t see what you do as that, Soot, but go off I guess.” 

Other Wilbur tilted his head to the side. “Why did you just call me by my surname?”  
  
“Can’t just call you ‘other me’ now, can I?” 

Other Wilbur smiled, as if the fact that he was answering him instead of remaining in a shocked silence was something that he found fantastic. Wilbur, instead, felt like his own heart was going to choke him as loud as it was beating, as he tried to play this all as cool as he could, like he really was alright with… _this situation_.  _While all he really wanted was to get back home._

“Fine. I guess you can call me that.” Other Wilbur agreed, before gesturing him to follow as he started walking towards one of the other tunnels. 

“Where are we going?” Wilbur asked, hesitant to follow his other-self anywhere, especially in a dimly lit tunnel, while they were alone. Not that he thought that the other members of Pogtopia would try to save him if Other Wilbur, or well… Soot, tried to kill him. Besides Tommy, of course.

“My room” Soot answered easily, Wilbur tensed slightly, remembering the almost excessive closeness to which the other had forced him not even a few minutes ago. Or at least he thought it was just a few minutes, staying underground was screwing up his concept of time, even with how little he had been here.

“Why?” he asked, half-worried that that question, among the others, would have pushed the other from this agreeable state to one way less agreeable and much more terrifying maybe even violent. 

But Soot just laughed off his question, and then said, instead of answering,: “Glad to see the post-betrayal suspicion making a return, I almost thought you where from before the traitor betrayed us. Which honestly, no offense, General, but it wouldn’t do for our situation.” a little pause, and then Soot started walking again towards the tunnel that, apparently, led to his room. 

Another thing that didn’t follow the script of the Dream SMP, his character never had a real room in Pogtopia, Tommy being the only one and his room didn’t even contain a bed, more of a little space were he could stay alone than anything else.

“And the why is to plan, General.” Soot added after a moment, his figure almost completely disappeared in the shadows, his voice echoing almost ominously between the stone walls of the underground base.

Not wanting to test his other-self’s patience any more than he had already done, and having noticed the hint of irritation in his tone. Wilbur started following the other in the tunnel, even if he really didn’t want to, as the idea of staying alone with him in a room mostly secluded from the rest of the base terrified and worried him, other than creeping him out. He really hoped that Soot would keep his distance this time.  
  
_Well, at least… planning was something he could do._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the comments and the help ^-^
> 
> Just to clear things further: cc!Wilbur will call c!Wilbur 'Soot' from now on.  
> While c!Wilbur will call cc!Wilbur 'General' and in rare occasions 'Wil'
> 
> Tommy just will call both of them either 'Wil' or 'Wilbur' or some nickname from his vast array of nicknames.  
> Techno will call cc!Wilbur 'General Soot', if only to distinguish him from their Wilbur.
> 
> And yeah, Vilbur is kinda creepy with Wilbur, mostly because as he sees him as just another himself he doesn't think they need any personal boundaries .-. (You think I should tag it? And if so... any suggestion on the tag?)


	4. Planning a Rebellion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turns out that planning out a battle for a story and planning one that will become a real battle, is not at all that different.  
> If he ignores, his brain screaming at him that this time people will die for real.

His other-self room was, surprisingly, the best lit room in the entirety of the ravine base, though it looked less like bedroom and more of a plan/war room, with notes and pieces of paper fixed on the walls all written with a curvy scrawl that at first Wilbur hadn’t been able to understand, and had him focus on how cold he still felt to drown out the panic raising in his mind at the possibility that they wrote in another language.

_He wasn’t Clay_ , he hadn’t memorized the Galactic Script that made Minecraft’s written system, luckily though after a few moments he managed to recognize the letters, it wasn’t another language, just Soot having the fanciest handwriting Wilbur had ever saw.

Which was actually a problem, on its own, since Soot would probably expect him to have the same fancy scrawl, when he definitely _didn’t_ , _he wrote in print, for God’s sake, like all the normal people in reality…_

“I know, I know this is way more space than we had in the Camarvan.” Soot said, tone light, the irritation seemingly gone, though Wilbur didn’t trust it. Once again the man was glad that his other-self had interpreted his silence in his way, giving him the time to get under control his thoughts once again.

Soot gestured him to come closer, as he neared the table that stood in the middle of the room, Wilbur did as told. On the table there was a handmade map of what he immediately recognized as L’Manberg.

It was more than absurd, but for a moment, Wilbur forgot all of his fear and anxiety as he looked at the detailed map, lines of black ink on parchment outlining something that Wilbur had created, only that it wasn’t fake, this time. It wasn’t something he had made in a game, he wasn’t looking at it through a screen, it wasn’t a blocky, unrealistic thing.

_It was… there._

_Real as he was real.  
Real as his heartbeat._

_His L’Manberg._

The country he had created just to shake things up in a too placid and calm server.

Wilbur wanted to see  _it_. Not on a map, he wanted to _see it,_ with his own eyes.  _His country, his_ -

Wilbur almost jumped,  whipping towards the direction from where the hand that had touched his shoulder came, the coat billowing behind him with a soft ‘whoosh’ of fabric.

Soot chuckled, raising his hands in a mock-gesture of surrender, his eyes glazed by madness, light up by amusement and… _understanding?_ _For what?_

Soot lowered his hands, as Wilbur took a few breaths to calm his too fast beating heart, the humid stale, musty smell of the ravine quickly becoming familiar, just as the hints of smoke filling the air.

“It’s beautiful… isn’t it, General?” Soot asked as he moved around the table, the tips of his fingers running over the lines that symbolized the walls surrounding L’Manberg. There was something fond and wistful in his voice.

Something that made his voice sound just like his own for the first time since they had met, when he found himself thrown in a place that shouldn’t exist.

“ _It is_.” He answered, almost in a whisper, his tone identical to his other-self’s.

Soot smiled, in a way that was almost bittersweet, but more bitter than anything else. “I drew this map a few months after the Revolution, me and…” a pause, hurt flashed in his eyes, so intense and deep, that made Wilbur want to comfort his other-self despite how much he terrified him, and how crossed he was with him for his treatment of Tommy. Soot continued: “ _Fundy_ , were starting to plan a second ring of walls, I thought that meant that I had convinced him that it was necessary… how fucking wrong I was…” a soft, low chuckle left his lips, the sound so low that it was more of a huff than a real chuckle.

Wilbur reached towards his other-self before he could thing better of it,  Soot stared blankly at him, for a moment and then one more before his more customary too wide smile curved his lips once more. 

“But! We are not here to willow on what’s gone wrong!” He exclaimed quite loudly and suddenly, making Wilbur drop his hand with a barely suppressed flinch. “We are here to plan.”

Wilbur nodded, slowly, trying to push away from his mind the images of what had just happened, lest he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the present, focusing to much on the fact that there was still something savable in the other, than on not looking like a fish taken out of water as he tried to move around planning an actual battle plan.

Soot thought he was him, that he was the General he had been during the Revolution War for L’Manberg’s indipendence, he surely was expecting him to know how to plan a battle, and… in part Wilbur did, he had done his research, when he had decided to write the ‘Revolution War Arc’ of the Dream SMP, even though most of it didn’t get that much attention in the Arc itself, the war more akin to a cold war than an actual all-out war.

And especially, none of it had been real, so Wilbur hadn’t really focused all that much on the planning aspect, not really having to worry about making sure that no-one died as it was just a game, they would respawn and if the death hadn’t been ‘recognized’ it wouldn’t even matter.

Now, though, now it was different.

_If he was right, and this was actually real, he didn’t even know if the ‘three lives’ thing existed here and he didn’t really want to test it…_ , Wilbur forced down the feeling in his chest, that constricting, horrible feeling that he wouldn’t call panic, even though it was, panic mixed with the  knowledge that… this time, _lives_ , real actual lives depended on his plan. On whatever he was able to put together.

‘ _No plan survives first contact with the enemy_.’ he had read that quote somewhere, once, though he didn’t remember where, not that it was important. What mattered was that he had to keep anything he and Soot were about to plan out, flexible enough to let them change it on the fly if things went wrong.  


_Supposing that he’d stay here till… whenever the Revolution against Schlatt happened_ , for all he knew, he’d really just wake up in a few hours, in his room, in his house, _in his reality_. But he had to plan right, in the eventuality that that didn’t happen, just to be ready, to be sure.

“You said that… you made this map, after the Revolution, how accurate is it to L’Manberg present state?” Wilbur asked, choosing carefully his words, trying to remember when exactly Schlatt had started tearing down the walls, if it was directly after his first decree or if it was part of the second. _Hell he didn’t even know if Schlatt had already done a second decree, in the moment he was in._

He… didn’t even know how slowly or quickly things would move, how the days and weeks between streams would translate in this Universe ( _he really was starting to think that this wasn’t a dream, too many details differed from what he had written… like it really was its own thing, a world on its own_ ).

Soot nodded before starting to talk: “The second ring of walls was never even started so we can ignore it right away, and  _the bastard_ has started tearing down the walls here, here and here.” he pointed  to a part of the walls behind the L’mantree after the first 'here', and to the section in front Eret’s second watchtower after the second, and a point behind where… if Wilbur remembered correctly, was the White House of L’Manberg after the third.

All the points indicated by his other-self,  beside the one behind the L’mantree that would have removed the section of the walls with the entrance to the Prime Path, were all…  _not immediately noticeable if one lived in L’Manberg, but why would Schlatt have the walls removed in such random points_?

_ That wasn’t what had happened in the roleplay. _

_Why were things so… different?  
_   
“And  _he_ called  _me_ a tyrant.” Soot scoffed under his breath “He is tearing down the walls without having even asked, but no,  _I was the tyrant_.”

“Wait… he is doing that without the citizens’ consent?” Wilbur asked, too shocked by that to think of anything else. 

Soot nodded. “He has somehow convinced the entire Guard to stand by him…  _Fucking traitors all of them,_ _betraying the people they’ve swore to protect for a drunken son of a bitch_ …” 

Soot continued on, rambling about how much he hated Schlatt and the L’Manberg Guard, but Wilbur wasn’t focusing on his words anymore, stuck on that ‘ _the entire Guard_ ’, _since when L’Manberg had a Guard? Since… no, wait… that made sense._

If this was a place where all that was happening in the Dream SMP was real… it made sense that it had more inhabitants than the thirty-three people present in the server, after all if this was their reality, a world couldn’t be inhabited just by thirty-three people… 

_ Oh, God. How many people had Soot  actually  led to battle when the Revolutionary War was happening?  _

_ It wasn’t seven,  like he had done in the role-play, it couldn’t be.  
  
Oh, God.  
This was worse than he had anticipated. _

_ How the hell hadn’t he thought about this? Why did he think that it would make sense for an entire world? Planet? To have only thirty-three people? _

Wilbur heard, if distantly over his ever-overlapping thoughts, Soot sigh. 

“We should have executed them all after Eret’s betrayal. If they had followed a betrayer once, we should have expected for them to do it again.” 

“Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.” Wilbur whispered deciding to file away what his other-self had just said, knowing that if he lingered even a bit on the thought that another him had, literally, ordered an execution, he probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with the fake cool he was showing.

“You said it, General.”

After a brief, solemn-felt silence, Soot motioned to the map, and he and Wilbur returned planning. 

And so Wilbur discovered that planning a real plan of action wasn’t all that different from doing it for the script, it was somewhat the same if he ignored the way is every thought was screaming at him that… _it was now all real_. 

If he had got something wrong, if he hadn’t kept something in mind, if he had made some mistake, the blood of those that would have died would be on his hands, that the blood of the people Soot and his rebellion would spill was on his hands regardless. 

That he shouldn’t ignore this, he shouldn’t look away from this truth, that he shouldn’t, couldn’t do like a kid ignoring a nightmare. But Wilbur didn’t want to confront the fact that he was…  _literally_ talking of the best way to siege a nation, the best way to take real, living, breathing people by surprise so that they could slaughter those that sided with Schlatt,  of the best points in L’Manberg to take control of, so that Technoblade could rain hell fire with his enchanted( _enchantments were real too here, as they were in game… uh, if he wasn’t so numbed from all the revelations that were coursing through his head, he’d have found that surprising_ ) crossbow. 

Wilbur didn’t want to confront that, so he just focused on talking, and discussing, his voice melding with Soot’s to the point that he had to check more than once to reassure his brain that he wasn’t talking to himself, that he wasn’t making a complete discussion only with himself…  _well, technically, in a sense he was_ , but it was reassuring to look up from the map and seeing someone else in the room with him.

“We’ll get more information on the state of L’Manberg tomorrow from Tubbo.” Soot said, after they had practically hit a dead end, staring at the map so much that the ink lines almost appeared to be moving in front of his eyes. “He is our inside man, though I trust that kid only as far as I can throw him… He is too close to the ram-horned bastard.” 

“Tubbo wouldn’t betray us, he loves Tommy too much to hurt him like that.” Wilbur rebutted, at least one plus side of having passed who knows how much time( _it was difficult to gouge an estimate when there was no way to see if the sun had moved in the sky_ ) discussing together, Wilbur was less afraid to accidentally set off his other-self.

“We’ll see.” Soot said, gaze still fixed on the map, as if he could see something Wilbur didn’t, which, to be fair, _he probably did_. _It was a miracle that he had been able to not get caught in his lies, because, while yeah, he could read a map pretty well, he wasn’t an actual general._

All he had gone on about was thanks to those things he had read on the internet while trying to make his character realistic when he was playing the part of the General in the server.

Wilbur looked around the room once more to allow his eyes to rest, after having strained his sight so much, _yes, Soot’s room was well lit in comparison of the rest of Pogtopia, but it wasn’t still enough to not have him strain his eyes to see as easily as his other-self could_. And it was then, while he was doing that that he noticed a strange, to slim, shadow on the wall. 

“What’s that?” he asked before thinking better of it.

Soot raised his eyes from the map, following his gaze to see what he was referring to. A slow smile curving his lips. “I wouldn’t touch it if I were you.”  
  
“Is that...? It’s for a hidden passageway or something?”  
  
“No-uh, it’s connected to something way more destructive.”  
  
Wilbur’s eyes widened, _surely… no. Surely Soot wasn’t telling him so nonchalantly that he had rigged the ravine. Surely he wasn’t…!_

“Have you…? Don’t tell me you have rigged this place.”  
  
Soot shrugged. “It’s just a backup plan, if the bastard and his men find Pogtopia. I don’t want him to take anything else from me.”

Any and all form of relative calm he had, left Wilbur immediately, the thought that he had been so calm while probably walking over literal tnt, making itself way too clear and ever present in his mind. “Tommy and Technoblade know about your… backup plan right?”  
  
Soot shook his head, “I don’t trust Techno, and Tommy would try to convince me to take it off.”  
  
“And rightly so!” Wilbur yelled, before he could stop himself, flinching at the sound of his own voice, it was too loud, too similar to Soot’s for his comfort, but he was scared, _he had every reason to!_

  
His other-self’s gaze moved on him. “Uh, you think so, General?” He asked, deceptively calm, Wilbur took a step back, involutarily nearing the wall as Soot moved around the table.  
  
“What if something accidentally sets your trap off? It’s… it’s dangerous, you must see that.”  
  
“And what do you propose, that if Schlatt finds us I let him take Pogtopia too?”  
  
Wilbur backed away of another half-step. “That’s… not what I’m saying. What I mean… what I mean is that, we are underground, there are too many things that could set this thing off accidentally.” 

Soot took another step forward,  before suddenly lunging at him, grabbing him by the lapels of the coat and pushing him against the wall, Wilbur felt his heart stop when he realized how close he was to the button hidden against the stone wall, _how close Soot had been to basically slam him onto the button._

“Are you completely fucking _insane_?!” He yelled before his other-self could even open his mouth. “You almost… You-”

Wilbur’s words turned into a hiss of pain when Soot pressed him against the wall even more, the cuts on his back opening back up at the movement. 

“Do. Not. Call. Me. Insane. _Wil_.” Soot growled, gaze chained to his, and so close that Wilbur could see his own terrified eyes reflected in the other’s. “I know exactly what I’m doing. Just because I’m not… a General, I’m not a President anymore, that doesn’t make you better than me.” 

Wilbur stared at his other-self, voice blocked in his throat just like it had been the first time they had ‘talked’, his heart beating so fast that he felt like he was going to choke on it, and the smell of coal, smoke and blood that surrounded him was making him feel dizzy, like there wasn’t enough clean oxygen, like he was suffocating on it.

He brought his hands to Soot’s shoulders, trying to push him away, but the other seemed immovable as a statue.

Instead of getting away from him, Soot leaned in, again too close, way too close.

“Force my hand again, Wil… and I swear to you that it won’t be pleasant. _Am I clear?_ ”

Wilbur nodded as best as he could.

Soot smiled, too wide, slightly psychotic, looking way too pleased to have him with his back pressed against the wall and so fucking terrified for his life. “Glad we see eye to eye, _General_.”

Neither of them noticed the sound of steps nearing the room, and Soot continued staying way too close, as if he was savoring the image. 

“Wilbur, Wil! Techno made… lunch.” Tommy’s voice, clear and almost happy, close to the one Wilbur connected with the Tommy from his universe, resounded in the room, even as it slowly lowered till it was a shocked, confused… a hint _disgusted?_ ( _Why?_ ) whisper.  
The kid turned around as Soot finally let Wilbur go. 

“I-I… I’ll- we’ll just wait for you two… just… uh… We’ll wait, come when you’ve… uh _finished_.” Tommy bolted out of the room before either of them could do or say anything. 

Soot chuckled at his brother apparent embarrassment, his smile still on the psychotic side of things as he stepped back, giving Wilbur ample space to breathe and get away from the wall and the closeness with both Soot and the button on the wall.

When his other-self decided that he had had enough time to get it back together, _he hadn’t, it wasn’t even close to enough time_ , he got near him once again, throwing his arm over his shoulders, in a friendly gesture that made Wilbur freeze.

“Don’t tell them anything about my… well, _our_ , little back-up plan, _Wil_.” Soot whispered way too sweetly. “We can talk of the plan to take back L’Manberg, but the rest… _it’s just between you and me_.”

Wilbur only nodded, his voice still trapped in his throat and his heart beating way too fast and way too hard.

“Perfect!” Soot said, and then the two of them, Wilbur moving mechanically by his other-self’s side, left the room.

All that Wilbur could think was that… _he was dead, he was so fucking dead._

_ If Soot treated him like this believing that they were the same person… what would he do if he discovered that they… weren’t? Not exactly at least. _

_ He was so fucking dead. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of you guys, Atalante241 said in one of their comments that Wilbur was gonna have so much trauma from this... well... you are right. And this is just the beginning. 
> 
> Little curiosities:  
> The phrase cc!Wilbur says about betrayal: " _Betrayal is the only truth that sticks._ ” is from Arthur Miller, an american writer and drama writer, I don't know why but I pin Wilbur as one who sometimes randomly quotes things from things he knows when he is nervous.
> 
> And since there will be more about this in the following chapters, the battle planning strategy Wilbur and Vilbur are following is the UK Combat Estimate, also called 7 Questions. Why I chose this? Only because Wil is british.
> 
> Hope you guys liked the chapter ^-^ And thank you for all the support you are giving me for this story, it's greately appriciated.


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